The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1887-12-07
JAPANESE JAIIS.
HARSH TREATMENT RECEIVED
BY PRISONERS. .,
Kept in a Cage for Six Months With
out Trial-A Scanty Food
Allowance - Seventies
of Orient Life.

A Japanese Jail, or house of detention,
is the first place to which prisoners are
brought, questioned and locked up in
small cages to await trial. The cells or
cages are small affairs, ten by ten feet
square, the sides made of strong wooden
bars. In this place from six to ten pris-
oners are confined at timc-crowded
in together regardless of all comfort and
with no regard as to the nature of the
crime of which they are accused; it
may be petty larceny or it may
be conspiracy against the Govern
ment, or even murder. The
cages are so arranged that one side of
them faces to the outside, and even in
the most severe weather this wooden
shutter cannot be closed except by per-
mission of the governor of the Jail. If
the prisoner is arrested in the winter
time and happens to have on at the time
good supply of heavy, warm clothing,
he is fortunate, as neither the jailor nor
the Government furnish clothing to the
prisoners except straw sandles and thin
cotton gown reaching from the neck to
midway below the knees. This is the
entire wardrobe of a prisoner whose
clothes are worn out. At night thick
quilted cotton blanket is given each
prisoner, and it answers all purposes of
bed and bedding, but even this is re-
moved in the morning and cannot be
used as protection against the severity
of the weather.
Food is served three times a day, but
in such small quantities as to hardly do
more than sustain life. The food con-
sists of boiled rice, and vegetables in
very small quantities-a handful Of rice
and about one or, perhaps, one-half of a
-parsn or carrot, and sometimes very
small amount of cabbage. Meat is never
served by the prison officials, but the
prisoners friends may send him in some
after answering innumerable and utterly
useless questions. Should the well
meaning friend fail to answer any one of
these questions to the satisfaction of the
jailor, the prisoner gets no meat, and Is
very likely to be punished himself by
having his already meagre prison fare re-
duced. ..l5
If prisoner has money he can get let
ters sent to his friends after his examina-
ton before the secret tribunal, but no
writing is permitted before that time.
Six months must always elapse before he
comes before this secret court and some
times much longer period. At the end
of this examination, if his judges think
him guilty, he is taken into the public
courts and there tried again, but he can
never see his lawyer except in the pres
ence of two Jail officials. Should the
prisoner be dissatisfied with the verdict
of the open courts his only appeal can be
made to the Daishin-ru the court of su-
preme judgmenD from whose decision
there is no appeal.
While awaiting trial the prisoner is
kept in the Jail or house of detention de-
scribed above and has no work to do;
but after trial, if found guilty, he Is
taken to the criminal prison, where the
arrangements are much like those of the
iail, and at once put to work. The kind
of work which he does depends largely
upon what trade he knows, and the arti-
clcs are sold by the Government. If he
should not know any trade the criminal
is set to work on the roads or breaking
stone. While at work the prisoners are
bound together with strong rope around
the waist of each, and watched over and
kept hard at work by an armed guard.
In the prison as in the jail there is
much the same treatment, only it Is some-
what worse in the prison, because there
the prisoners work all day and yet receive
no better or more food or clothing. NO
distinction is made between prisoners
after trial; whether they are political or
criminal, all are treated alike. and it often
happens that a murderer may be placed
in the same cage and work with man
sentenced for some slight offence. The
female prisoners fare much as the men
and are in the same building, only sep
arated by q thin partition from that por-
ton occupied by the male prisoners. The
head of the prison is the Governor, under
whom are all the officers. Under the Of
ficers there is yet another class of at
tendants, chosen from among the prls-
oners, and whose duty it is to do the more
mcnial prison work. Should any pris-
oner dare to say that thin cotton gar
ment and q pair of straw sandals was
insufficient clothing for work in the
open air, during the severest winter
weather. or that a handful of rice
and a single turnip Mt q meal
would not enable him to work, he IS
punished in one of three ways. His
scanty allowance of food may be so re-
duced that unless he becomes tractable
he will eventually starve to death, or ne
may be placed, in a dark, solitary cage
and fed on rice and water until there Is
not enough strength left in his body to
enable him to walk, or two pieces OF iron
may be strapped on either side of his
body from the armpit down each leg to
the ankle, thus obliging him to remain
in standing position until the Jailors
think his punishment severe enough.
Should any prisoner undergoing this
punishment persist in falling down to
obtain any rest, he is placed upon high
platform just large enough for him to
stand on, and from which fall means
certain death When there is nothing
else for the prison attendants to do they
amuse themselves by beating the pris-
oncrs through the bars of the cage.
AS the prisons have absolutely no
sanitary arrangements disease among the
inmates is by no means an uncommon oc-
currcnce. The hospital is a small num-
Der of cages portioned off from the rest
of the prison, and here the sick are placed
in cages twenty by twenty feet square,
sometimes as many as twelve or fifteen
being in one cage. The insane arc
placed in among the other sick prisoners
and no particular attention is given